Here are two of my attempted starting posts for this blog that I wrote earlier in the summer. I have cleaned them up a bit:
Second week of July, 2009:
So today was the first day of the rest of my life. I am writing this first blog in a word document because I am too afraid to post my thoughts directly to the internet; it is frightening releasing my impulsive thoughts straight to cyber-reality. I feel that in time I will become more used to it though.
This blog was intended to be a reflection on every book and intelligent thought I had, but I just couldn’t get started with that in mind. It seemed too fake, too forced, like a really poorly designed high school assessment. I had a conversation today about how good writing and blogging in particular can be when it is impulsive, impromptu-ed, and altogether fluid and true. So here is my first true blog.
This summer has been very difficult for me. This morning was one of those mornings that I woke up with a little black rain cloud over me. My job hasn’t been working out, and in general I just feel stagnant and lousy. As the day went on, however, things took a turn for the better. I had a simple breakfast sitting on the back porch with my mom. She always seems to make things better when we talk. I also found that I could volunteer teaching at children’s theatre classes next week. Now, not only will I have something to wake up for in the mornings, but this will give me the chance to work with children and theatre once again. I have been craving these opportunities for the past year. I miss the learning that working with students can bring, and the role-based understanding that theater can shed on my life.
Blog 2: 20.7.09
Title: Free Revelations in a Park, or, Why Did I not Know the True Story of Cinderella Until Now?
It's about time I blog again. Much wonderful life has happened since my last post.
Last night Abby and I accompanied her friends to a free performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in West Goshen park. Seeing a play put on in an outside theatre was the perfect end to a week of contemplations on theatre. One of the books I have been gleaning insight from this summer is "Role Playing and Identity", which analyzes through a phenomenalogical perspective the benefits of "the world" of theatre in manifesting aspects of the world. This book has been shaping and guiding my thoughts on theatre and appearances for some time now. This past week provided me with a perfect opportunity to see theatre in person, because I volunteered at a children’s theatre camp. Every day for a week I worked with children and had many conversations with Mr. T about theatre and life in general. So you can imagine how excited I was to apply all of my knowledge when Abby and I sat in the park watching the Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company play on a Midsummer's Night.
"Role Playing" begins by explaining the relationship between an Audience and Actors in collaboratively giving authority to each other during a theatrical performance. The actors play a concentrated image of life as the audience authorizes them to represent life and to represent the individual members of the audience as the characters in the work. In Midsummer, Shakespear brilliantly calls this agreement into the foreground by showing how ridiculous theatre becomes when it tries to explain this inherent agreement. Bottom tells Quince that the play (within a play) that they plan to perform needs a prolougue to explain that he is not in actuality Pyramus, and will not, in all actuality, kill himself during the performance. He goes even further to recommend that Snug the Joiner, as he comes on stage dressed as a lion, should speak through his mask to let it be known to the women in the audience that he is not actually a lion, and therefore, they have nothing to fear from his (intended) frightening performance. The audience of the play laughs at their unesscesary explanations. Shakespeare gives the absent, unspoken agreement presence.
The book also talks of the human phenomenon to stand in for roles, and the danger to the human psyche of not being able to fill a role. Ageus in the beginning of the play demands that his daughter Hermia marries not her true love, Lysander, but rather, the man that he has picked for her husband (Dimitrius). In typical Athenian style, the duty of the role of daughter is given much more importance than her role of lover. Shakespeare reverses this role in the end. He claims through the verdict of Theseus that the young couples' roles as lovers are more important than the duty that children owe to their parents. Whether this message contains more significance to life than pure comedy is left up to the audience's interpretation.
[Aside] I enjoy hearing bells toll the hour of the night as I write on my porch.
Alongside theatre, I have been meditating on the structure and meaning of storytelling to humans. As a great professor of mine once summarized, humans are symbol processing machines, and many times the best way we can communicate and remember ideas are through stories. Abby and I were talking of humanities and the stories that have been passed down through generations this evening when she asked if I had ever seen the movie Ever After. I had not. So we watched it.
This film does a fantastic job of bringing modern sensibilities to the lovely fairytale of Cinderella. The main character in Ever After, Danielle, is a strong, independent charachter, compared to the Cinderella of olde who sits and wishes and washes and waits. Danielle reads, has ideas, works, and never fails to stand up for herself. I also really enjoyed that the film gave more emotional and psychological depth to the rest of the characters. The "wicked step-mother" is shown as loving Danielle's father posthumously and at one point in the story almost shows love and affection to Danielle. One of Daniell's "evil step-sisters" develops from a timid character to a young woman who is able to stand up to and defy her mother's cruelty. The prince goes through an internal battle over the worth he places on a person's station in life compared to their personality.
These deep characters made me question whether or not this version of Cinderella should even be called a fairytale. Fairytales, as a genre, typically feature somewhat flat charachters in order to portray a moral. What's more, all fairytales include magic. Instead of her magical fairy godmother, Danielle receives help from Leonardo DaVinci. What does that say about the nature of logic? An even deeper question, which Abby posed to me, is what does that say about the nature of magic?
Acting and storytelling both serve as lenses through which men, women, and children can take pause to view and analyze life. What is amazing about these stories is that as an audience, we have the advantage of being able to view these lessons either as an objective observer or as an intimate character who is being represented by an actor or story character. I plan to study closer the benefits of theatre and story telling as pedagogic and philosophic tools. For now, I am elated to discover how much there is to explore in things I have naturally cared about since childhood.
16.8.09
Haygood's Legacy
So what do Daniel Webster, the post-antebellum South, and Pat Boone have in common? Why, the International Platform Association's (IPA) Silver Bowl Awards of course!!
This past Friday, my family gathered in Washington D.C., got dressed up (a big deal for some of us), and drove to the Army and Navy club to attend the IPA's annual meeting. It's not easy to get my family to gather on the same occasion. Holidays and trips to Costa Rica rarely are successful at accomplishing such a feat. Nevertheless, two days ago, I stood at the front of a room with two generations of my family to receive a Silver Bowl Lifetime in Education Achievement Award posthumously for my great, great, great grandfather, Atticus G Haygood.
Atticus Haygood was quite a man. He lived 1839 to 1896. During his lifetime, he was president of Emory College (now University), founded and reformed several black and white universities in the south, most notably Paine Institue (now college) in Augusta, preached as a pastor for the Methodist church throughout most of his life, and served as Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the last six years of his life. During his spectacular life, he wrote several books dealing with issues such as Christian apologetics, methods for the New South's reconstruction and the healing of race relations in the tulmotuous post-war South. My grandfather and Uncle have spent the last year writing a biography of this man. Through their research, they have uncovered many interesting facts about our family's history, lineage, and have even been able to re-establish contact with cousins that we have not talked to for generations. (One side of the family ran away to Hawaii, it's no wonder that we haven't had contact with them). This year, the IPA decided to award Atticus Haygood by presenting him with a Silver Bowl award (other recipients include John F Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Elizabeth Taylor, William F. Buckley, Isaac Assimov, and George Gallup Jr.). I highly reccomend anyone who is interested to learn more about the IPA to view its website.
In preparation for the award ceremony, I read two of Haygood's books this summer: "The Man of Galilee" and "Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future".
"The Man of Galilee" is a fascinating book. Haygood wrote it as a compilation of many lectures he had given at Emory about "The Man of Galilee," Jesus of Nazareth. He begins the book: "Who and what was Jesus of Nazareth? In this question and its answer is involved the whole of what we mean by Christianity." He acknowledges the same question that many modern day Christians acknowledge. If there was no Jesus, then there is not much of a basis for Christianity. In 1889 however, Haygood didn't have much access to carbon dating and modern forensic techniques. He instead proves Jesus' existence and his preaching's validity through logic and reasoning. This was the most powerful work of apologetics that I have encountered. Here are a few of the quotations that I picked out as meaningful:
"Nothing in Jesus calls on men to profess to believe what to them is not the truth;" (13)
"Whether with hand or brain man works upon materials furnished him; man creates nothing; man is created." (32) -part of the chapter which argues that the evangelists would not have been able to create such a character as Jesus, due to the fact that they would not have been able to draw a character so much taller than themselves and their context in history and their society.
"The disposition which we have been considering is a pure human instinct; it is restless, and it is the condition of mental activity. The mind that does not ask questions, that does not knock at the closed doors of knowledge, is stagnant and will perish. Progress and growth depend upon inquiry...But in these respects, as in so many others, Jesus is utterly unlike the philosophers and scientists and theologians. He does not in the least seek the end that mere men seek..He makes no inquiry, raises no question, offers no explanation concerning the origin of things." (64-65).
The book discuses his impact upon mankind through the ages, as wells as the benefits that come to the individual when he/she lives a life in accordance with the His teachings. After a 155 page proof of Jesus' influence and legitimacy however, Haygood makes a startling claim. His last paragraph is an incredible leap of faith: "But -- if he be only a man -- he is such a man as were a thousand times worth dying for and following forever, through time and eternity" (156). Haygood personally believed in Christ, but does not assume the same of his reader. But in his last statement, he captures the whole of his audience through his admission that even if he were wrong, he would not change his system of values. Even without the proof of Christ's divinity, Haygood still believes that he is the best example of a man that he can spend his time emulating.
"Our Brother in Black" is a much different read. The text is a bit drier because Haygood spends a lot of space presenting a description of the state of the south. His goals seemed to be as follows:
1. Describe the situation truthfully (which I'm not sure about whether or not he was able to accomplish. Although he did admit to some difficulties, his summaries seemed much too positive for what I know about the reconstruction years, but then again, I don't know much about it, and all of my history classes have taught me from a very shoddy post-revisionist mindset).
2. Describe how both slavery and emancipation were acts of providence so that the black race could become civilized and convert to Christianity.
3. Outline what needs to be done presently in the south to fix the nation's race problem and the relations between the Yankee carpetbaggers and the Southern Rebels. He claims that the three groups need to co-operate and realize that:
-a; the freedmen are humans, citizens, and voters
-b and as such, they must be treated well by churches, educated, engaged in community values, and have a better system of land ownership
4. His conclusion stated that the improvement of the black man in the south would lead to a stable society where their religion would flourish all for the purpose of enabling the black Christians to travel back to Africa, civilize the barbarians, and spread the word of God so that in one hundred years (ironic that it would have been about 1984) the United States would be a united country of God and the great land mass of savage Africa would become a blinding effusion of God's light and providence. (Haygood's entire tone reeked of colonialism. But that was the pevasive, if not the only, worldview of the time. It is valid that not even Haygood would have escaped it).
The book itself provides a fantastic view of the South at the time and the progressive movements that were beginning to gain momentum. After its publication, a Northern Philanthropist encountered the book, and becuase of its message, donated a large sum of money so that Haygood could establish all black colleges. Upon a first read of the book, I was a little suspicious of Haygood's optimism. He states many times that the majority of white southerners never treated the slaves poorly, and now just want to work with them as equals. These statements seem to conflict with the records we have of slavery (slave narratives) and the history that followed reconstruction (minimal amounts of Black people in office, Jim Crow laws, popularit of KKK and the paralysis, even the blind eye of the justice system). I was reading a biography of Haygood today however that states that he was very saddened about a decade after writing the book to find that popular opinion in the South was beginning to think it easier to oppress the black man as a citizen and as a voter rather than spending time and resources educating him to make him a more complete part of society. Upon learning this, I no longer question Haygood's optimism. He did see progress in the South. At the time of writing the book, he did sense hope for the future of the relations between the North, South, and the freedmen. Unfortunately, his message of hope and cooperation did not stick hold. Instead, many years would pass until Haygood's ideas would be grasped by the larger society.
All these thoughts about the two books and Haygood's life were passing through my mind as my six year old cousin stood holding the silver bowl, with my grandfather giving a speech behind a podium, as a new member of my family, who I had not known an hour prior stood next to me, and Pat Boone smiled in his very stylish white suit as pictures were taken of all of us. I thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and all of the opportunities it provided to me. I am very fortunate to have such an amazing man as Atticus Haygood in my family tree. I have learned a tremendous amount from his books, as well as the converstaions they have enabled me to have with my family. In short, I am thankful for this very fortunate colliding of events and knowledge which, when looked at from afar, really doesn't seem like it fits together at all.
This past Friday, my family gathered in Washington D.C., got dressed up (a big deal for some of us), and drove to the Army and Navy club to attend the IPA's annual meeting. It's not easy to get my family to gather on the same occasion. Holidays and trips to Costa Rica rarely are successful at accomplishing such a feat. Nevertheless, two days ago, I stood at the front of a room with two generations of my family to receive a Silver Bowl Lifetime in Education Achievement Award posthumously for my great, great, great grandfather, Atticus G Haygood.
Atticus Haygood was quite a man. He lived 1839 to 1896. During his lifetime, he was president of Emory College (now University), founded and reformed several black and white universities in the south, most notably Paine Institue (now college) in Augusta, preached as a pastor for the Methodist church throughout most of his life, and served as Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for the last six years of his life. During his spectacular life, he wrote several books dealing with issues such as Christian apologetics, methods for the New South's reconstruction and the healing of race relations in the tulmotuous post-war South. My grandfather and Uncle have spent the last year writing a biography of this man. Through their research, they have uncovered many interesting facts about our family's history, lineage, and have even been able to re-establish contact with cousins that we have not talked to for generations. (One side of the family ran away to Hawaii, it's no wonder that we haven't had contact with them). This year, the IPA decided to award Atticus Haygood by presenting him with a Silver Bowl award (other recipients include John F Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Elizabeth Taylor, William F. Buckley, Isaac Assimov, and George Gallup Jr.). I highly reccomend anyone who is interested to learn more about the IPA to view its website.
In preparation for the award ceremony, I read two of Haygood's books this summer: "The Man of Galilee" and "Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future".
"The Man of Galilee" is a fascinating book. Haygood wrote it as a compilation of many lectures he had given at Emory about "The Man of Galilee," Jesus of Nazareth. He begins the book: "Who and what was Jesus of Nazareth? In this question and its answer is involved the whole of what we mean by Christianity." He acknowledges the same question that many modern day Christians acknowledge. If there was no Jesus, then there is not much of a basis for Christianity. In 1889 however, Haygood didn't have much access to carbon dating and modern forensic techniques. He instead proves Jesus' existence and his preaching's validity through logic and reasoning. This was the most powerful work of apologetics that I have encountered. Here are a few of the quotations that I picked out as meaningful:
"Nothing in Jesus calls on men to profess to believe what to them is not the truth;" (13)
"Whether with hand or brain man works upon materials furnished him; man creates nothing; man is created." (32) -part of the chapter which argues that the evangelists would not have been able to create such a character as Jesus, due to the fact that they would not have been able to draw a character so much taller than themselves and their context in history and their society.
"The disposition which we have been considering is a pure human instinct; it is restless, and it is the condition of mental activity. The mind that does not ask questions, that does not knock at the closed doors of knowledge, is stagnant and will perish. Progress and growth depend upon inquiry...But in these respects, as in so many others, Jesus is utterly unlike the philosophers and scientists and theologians. He does not in the least seek the end that mere men seek..He makes no inquiry, raises no question, offers no explanation concerning the origin of things." (64-65).
The book discuses his impact upon mankind through the ages, as wells as the benefits that come to the individual when he/she lives a life in accordance with the His teachings. After a 155 page proof of Jesus' influence and legitimacy however, Haygood makes a startling claim. His last paragraph is an incredible leap of faith: "But -- if he be only a man -- he is such a man as were a thousand times worth dying for and following forever, through time and eternity" (156). Haygood personally believed in Christ, but does not assume the same of his reader. But in his last statement, he captures the whole of his audience through his admission that even if he were wrong, he would not change his system of values. Even without the proof of Christ's divinity, Haygood still believes that he is the best example of a man that he can spend his time emulating.
"Our Brother in Black" is a much different read. The text is a bit drier because Haygood spends a lot of space presenting a description of the state of the south. His goals seemed to be as follows:
1. Describe the situation truthfully (which I'm not sure about whether or not he was able to accomplish. Although he did admit to some difficulties, his summaries seemed much too positive for what I know about the reconstruction years, but then again, I don't know much about it, and all of my history classes have taught me from a very shoddy post-revisionist mindset).
2. Describe how both slavery and emancipation were acts of providence so that the black race could become civilized and convert to Christianity.
3. Outline what needs to be done presently in the south to fix the nation's race problem and the relations between the Yankee carpetbaggers and the Southern Rebels. He claims that the three groups need to co-operate and realize that:
-a; the freedmen are humans, citizens, and voters
-b and as such, they must be treated well by churches, educated, engaged in community values, and have a better system of land ownership
4. His conclusion stated that the improvement of the black man in the south would lead to a stable society where their religion would flourish all for the purpose of enabling the black Christians to travel back to Africa, civilize the barbarians, and spread the word of God so that in one hundred years (ironic that it would have been about 1984) the United States would be a united country of God and the great land mass of savage Africa would become a blinding effusion of God's light and providence. (Haygood's entire tone reeked of colonialism. But that was the pevasive, if not the only, worldview of the time. It is valid that not even Haygood would have escaped it).
The book itself provides a fantastic view of the South at the time and the progressive movements that were beginning to gain momentum. After its publication, a Northern Philanthropist encountered the book, and becuase of its message, donated a large sum of money so that Haygood could establish all black colleges. Upon a first read of the book, I was a little suspicious of Haygood's optimism. He states many times that the majority of white southerners never treated the slaves poorly, and now just want to work with them as equals. These statements seem to conflict with the records we have of slavery (slave narratives) and the history that followed reconstruction (minimal amounts of Black people in office, Jim Crow laws, popularit of KKK and the paralysis, even the blind eye of the justice system). I was reading a biography of Haygood today however that states that he was very saddened about a decade after writing the book to find that popular opinion in the South was beginning to think it easier to oppress the black man as a citizen and as a voter rather than spending time and resources educating him to make him a more complete part of society. Upon learning this, I no longer question Haygood's optimism. He did see progress in the South. At the time of writing the book, he did sense hope for the future of the relations between the North, South, and the freedmen. Unfortunately, his message of hope and cooperation did not stick hold. Instead, many years would pass until Haygood's ideas would be grasped by the larger society.
All these thoughts about the two books and Haygood's life were passing through my mind as my six year old cousin stood holding the silver bowl, with my grandfather giving a speech behind a podium, as a new member of my family, who I had not known an hour prior stood next to me, and Pat Boone smiled in his very stylish white suit as pictures were taken of all of us. I thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and all of the opportunities it provided to me. I am very fortunate to have such an amazing man as Atticus Haygood in my family tree. I have learned a tremendous amount from his books, as well as the converstaions they have enabled me to have with my family. In short, I am thankful for this very fortunate colliding of events and knowledge which, when looked at from afar, really doesn't seem like it fits together at all.
10.8.09
A movie that two of my friends are living
I am happy to say that tonight I have seen my first Wes Anderson film. A few friends and I watched The Darjeeling Limited. Vince told me that the first Wes Anderson film I should see should be The Royal Tenenbaums, but alas, Hollywood Video did not carry that movie, so we had to settle.
This movie was unlike many American films that I am used to. The beauty was not in the plot, not in the action, and not in the tear-jerking, epic clash-of-opposing-forces-at-the-end-of-the-world type scenes. The power of Darjeeling was built in the characterization of the three brothers, Francis, Peter, and Jack, and the tools that Anderson uses to express their interactions with each other, the people they meet, and with themselves. My favorite character was the mother. When the viewer finally meets her in the movie, he/she understands so much more about each of the main characters.
One aspect of the movie that I found terribly interesting was the brothers' search to find spiritual fulfillment in a culture other than their own. That quest for enlightenment in alternative styles seems to have become an undercurrent in American society since the beats discovered Zen; so much so that according to Christian Lander, the #2 thing that white people like is religion that their parents don't belong to. Throughout the movie, the brothers try everything from blaspheming in front of holy shrines, to painting dots on their foreheads, to playing with peacock feathers, all in order to find some guidance in their lives. All of this experimenting is undercut by the fact that the only reason the elder brother chose India as the location for the brothers' reunion is so that they can try to find their mother once again. This ulterior motive threatens the validity of their spiritual quest. Towards the end of the movie when the brothers have given up on returning with their mother, Jack even turns around at a shrine and asks: "what should we pray for now?" Now that they have failed in their true goal of bringing their mother back with them, the brothers are unable to pretend that they have been trying to become closer with each other. Luckily for them, the time spent together on the trip was enough to deepen their bonds and help them to drop their baggage (both literally and metaphorically). The end of the movie finds them united once again a train with a much closer relationship than they had had when they first met on the Darjeeling Limited.
I am typically not a fan of movies, but I really enjoy Anderson's style. He forces the viewer to be active, to notice the details (when do characters take swigs from coughing medicine, which characters play with music boxes) and to piece together their own conclusions about why people act the way they do. They meaning of the movie is not only portrayed through the script. The film was also not without its moments of comedy. I laughed outloud when a shot revealed the three brothers riding carefree on a motorcycle, their hair blowing in the wind, only to pan to a car traveling slightly behind them filled with porters carrying the brother's luggage. This is one of the few movies that I would not mind watching more than once. I feel that the more time I spend with this movie, the more I will learn from it. I look forward to watching Wes Anderson's other films.
This movie was unlike many American films that I am used to. The beauty was not in the plot, not in the action, and not in the tear-jerking, epic clash-of-opposing-forces-at-the-end-of-the-world type scenes. The power of Darjeeling was built in the characterization of the three brothers, Francis, Peter, and Jack, and the tools that Anderson uses to express their interactions with each other, the people they meet, and with themselves. My favorite character was the mother. When the viewer finally meets her in the movie, he/she understands so much more about each of the main characters.
One aspect of the movie that I found terribly interesting was the brothers' search to find spiritual fulfillment in a culture other than their own. That quest for enlightenment in alternative styles seems to have become an undercurrent in American society since the beats discovered Zen; so much so that according to Christian Lander, the #2 thing that white people like is religion that their parents don't belong to. Throughout the movie, the brothers try everything from blaspheming in front of holy shrines, to painting dots on their foreheads, to playing with peacock feathers, all in order to find some guidance in their lives. All of this experimenting is undercut by the fact that the only reason the elder brother chose India as the location for the brothers' reunion is so that they can try to find their mother once again. This ulterior motive threatens the validity of their spiritual quest. Towards the end of the movie when the brothers have given up on returning with their mother, Jack even turns around at a shrine and asks: "what should we pray for now?" Now that they have failed in their true goal of bringing their mother back with them, the brothers are unable to pretend that they have been trying to become closer with each other. Luckily for them, the time spent together on the trip was enough to deepen their bonds and help them to drop their baggage (both literally and metaphorically). The end of the movie finds them united once again a train with a much closer relationship than they had had when they first met on the Darjeeling Limited.
I am typically not a fan of movies, but I really enjoy Anderson's style. He forces the viewer to be active, to notice the details (when do characters take swigs from coughing medicine, which characters play with music boxes) and to piece together their own conclusions about why people act the way they do. They meaning of the movie is not only portrayed through the script. The film was also not without its moments of comedy. I laughed outloud when a shot revealed the three brothers riding carefree on a motorcycle, their hair blowing in the wind, only to pan to a car traveling slightly behind them filled with porters carrying the brother's luggage. This is one of the few movies that I would not mind watching more than once. I feel that the more time I spend with this movie, the more I will learn from it. I look forward to watching Wes Anderson's other films.
9.8.09
Third Time's the Charm
I have attempted to start this blog twice before this post, but each previous post didn't quite catch the tone I wanted to achieve with my blog. I wanted this blog to serve as both an intellectual and personal journal. After much thought and talk with friends over what form this blog should take, I finally feel confident in starting this blog one more time.
The summer is winding down. In three weeks, classes will start again. I am very much looking forward to being dropped in an intellectual maelstrom once again. Before I move into my apartment full time and my college friends begin arriving, I would like to take the time to stop and reflect on what I've learned during this busy, brilliant summer.
One of the greatest excitements of my summer was a two week trip to France and Belgium. In May, I took courses on European identity politics and medieval history at Shippensburg University for a week before traveling to Europe, staying in and around Belgium, and then Cathedral hopping through France. I don't know if I have ever learned so much in such a concentrated time. The entire trip had the effect of a cloister, or a labyrinth. I felt like I had shut myself off from the world for three weeks with a group of brilliant and insightful students and professors, and dedicated my time to studying a single subject in depth. Politics are fascinating. Art is beautiful. I now have a much greater appreciation for our history as a western culture. The New York Times has a great article that catches on something I learned in my travels from Cathedral to Cathedral. While in Belgium and France, I took my fathers old manual camera and used three rolls of film. The pictures themselves aren't of the highest quality because I am no great photographer, and because I am pretty sure that some of the film I used had expired. Nevertheless, if you wish to view them, you can see them here.
Two weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to find a job for a week as a counselor at an overnight camp. The camp was Julian Krinsky's junior camp located on Bryn Mawr's campus. Every day was filled with programming for the evening activities, playing various sports like soccer, frisbee and basketball with the kids, and keeping them busy at night with various activities such as going to the movies, trivia games, and the much loved casino night. (I was the roulette master. By the end of the night, some of the kids loved me, and some hated me. I pointed at the wheel to blame, but that didn't seem to help). Many of the campers, and most of the counselors, were international: people were from Australia, France, Portugal, Brazil, Peru, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. This camp was everything I needed: something to do during the day, a place to meet wonderful people, and a place to work with children again (it's unfortunately been so long since I've spent much time around elementary aged kids). My main regret was that I could only be there for a week.
The rest of my summer was filled with books read, time spent with friends (a trip to Bloomsburg, which was one of my best weeks, a day at the Met, Baltimore Aquarium, a week at the beach with Abby and her family, two RISK nights, and many, many pasta nights), and time with family. In the next few weeks I will be filling this blog with reflections on and quotations from books I've enjoyed (so in other words, books that I've read). This may not have been the most interesting post to read (sorry reader), but I'm just glad that after many false starts, I have finally gotten started. I feel that as soon as classes start again, I will keep up with this blog because I will have so much more to write about.
The summer months are such a strange phenomenon. No matter what I'm doing, there's always a sense of relaxation, free time, and exciting trips with friends. Even before I knew the song, Carbon Leaf seemed to have been singing in the back of my mind:
Building a fire
out in the garden
out in the summer sun
and the best is yet to come.
The summer is winding down. In three weeks, classes will start again. I am very much looking forward to being dropped in an intellectual maelstrom once again. Before I move into my apartment full time and my college friends begin arriving, I would like to take the time to stop and reflect on what I've learned during this busy, brilliant summer.
One of the greatest excitements of my summer was a two week trip to France and Belgium. In May, I took courses on European identity politics and medieval history at Shippensburg University for a week before traveling to Europe, staying in and around Belgium, and then Cathedral hopping through France. I don't know if I have ever learned so much in such a concentrated time. The entire trip had the effect of a cloister, or a labyrinth. I felt like I had shut myself off from the world for three weeks with a group of brilliant and insightful students and professors, and dedicated my time to studying a single subject in depth. Politics are fascinating. Art is beautiful. I now have a much greater appreciation for our history as a western culture. The New York Times has a great article that catches on something I learned in my travels from Cathedral to Cathedral. While in Belgium and France, I took my fathers old manual camera and used three rolls of film. The pictures themselves aren't of the highest quality because I am no great photographer, and because I am pretty sure that some of the film I used had expired. Nevertheless, if you wish to view them, you can see them here.
Two weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to find a job for a week as a counselor at an overnight camp. The camp was Julian Krinsky's junior camp located on Bryn Mawr's campus. Every day was filled with programming for the evening activities, playing various sports like soccer, frisbee and basketball with the kids, and keeping them busy at night with various activities such as going to the movies, trivia games, and the much loved casino night. (I was the roulette master. By the end of the night, some of the kids loved me, and some hated me. I pointed at the wheel to blame, but that didn't seem to help). Many of the campers, and most of the counselors, were international: people were from Australia, France, Portugal, Brazil, Peru, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. This camp was everything I needed: something to do during the day, a place to meet wonderful people, and a place to work with children again (it's unfortunately been so long since I've spent much time around elementary aged kids). My main regret was that I could only be there for a week.
The rest of my summer was filled with books read, time spent with friends (a trip to Bloomsburg, which was one of my best weeks, a day at the Met, Baltimore Aquarium, a week at the beach with Abby and her family, two RISK nights, and many, many pasta nights), and time with family. In the next few weeks I will be filling this blog with reflections on and quotations from books I've enjoyed (so in other words, books that I've read). This may not have been the most interesting post to read (sorry reader), but I'm just glad that after many false starts, I have finally gotten started. I feel that as soon as classes start again, I will keep up with this blog because I will have so much more to write about.
The summer months are such a strange phenomenon. No matter what I'm doing, there's always a sense of relaxation, free time, and exciting trips with friends. Even before I knew the song, Carbon Leaf seemed to have been singing in the back of my mind:
Building a fire
out in the garden
out in the summer sun
and the best is yet to come.
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